There was that line in the SJA episode "Death of the Doctor", where Sarah Jane refers to Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, two of the first companions of the First Doctor, as currently teaching at Cambridge, and not having aged since their return to Earth in 1965. Now while I can believe that their retarded ageing process is somehow caused by them travelling in time with the Doctor, I find it hard to accept that their miraculous youthfulness isn't more well known in the world. If people living now were still the same age they were in the sixties, AND were teaching at a public institution and using their real names, it would be a mass media sensation all over the globe. They'd have to hide from government forces who'd want to analyse them in a lab, to get the secret of their eternal youth. I'd like to hear people's opinions on this.
It's a tv show... Seriously, this constant need to try and make every little bit of the show make sense is gonna drive you potty sooner or later!
Dude - it's a kid's TV show. Don't watch Button Moon as you might be concerned that the Rocket couldn't actually fly and the moon looks awfully like a giant Button - it's just not logical.
*cough*bullshit*cough* If I have to choose between the lovely scene on The Crusade video of an elderly Ian talking of his adventures with the Doctor or a line of second-hand information presumably about Ian and Barbara in an episode of Sarah Jane, I'm going to go with the former every time.
That was indeed a lovely scene. Made me wish they'd do more of that with adventures where only some of the episodes were still extant. If William Russell or Frazier Hines narrated the gaps as the memories of the aging Ian / Jamie, I'd watch those for sure.
I took the line about the former companions to be sheer idealized speculation...open to debate and interpretation. Not something that was meant to be factual or set in stone. For some reason I had it in my head that at some point Ian and Babara were recruited into U.N.I.T. as consultants.
You might be thinking of David McIntee's novel Face of the Enemy, where they work alongside UNIT and the Master.
@EJA He didn't say that. Allyn was commenting on the line specifically and it's relevance with Barbara and Ian.
Heck, characters only ageing a few years (if at all) in a few decades is commonplace in comic books. It doesn't seem to bother most of the fans.
To be honest, I wasn't especially impressed with "The Death of the Doctor," but it had nothing to do with the episode's coda with Sarah Jane talking about her researches into the others who traveled with the Doctor. Like a lot of RTD's work, I grinned like a madman when I watched it (RTD writes very good visceral material), but when it was done it bothered me a bit. "The Death of the Doctor" was an episode of The Jo Grant Adventures, not The Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah gets kicked to the curb narratively when Jo Grant shows up about fifteen minutes into the first episode, and then once the Doctor shows up she's a non-entity. Honestly, her only significant role in the story was to be the person who could explain to everyone else that the Doctor can regenerate (since Jo had last seen the Doctor when he was Pertwee and Clyde and Rani both knew Tennant). Sarah doesn't even get a good-bye scene with the Doctor. (For that matter, the Doctor's departure is strangely handled, and I have to wonder if the story ran over-long so they cut it in post. I kept expecting something more, but there wasn't. It was curious.) It's the weakest of Matt Smith's stories. But my overall dislike of "The Death of the Doctor" has nothing to do with my calling "bullshit" on the final scene of the story. As Mirrorball Man mentioned above, I don't really have to choose between The Crusade and the lovely scene with an elderly Ian or the second-hand information Sarah Jane imparts -- because clearly Sarah Jane is incorrect in her researches.
I'd say it was more The Katy Manning Adventures. Anyway that line was only a rumour. It could just mean they were seen in the 1990s from when they were travelling with the Doctor. It's not like William Russell will be in the show to prove one way or the other - but they wouldn't use the line to prevent the older actor returning would they?
While I myself am not entirely comfortable with the idea of Ian and Barbara being immortal, I must say that age issues are far more irritating in comics. Just take a look at Magneto, the Howling Commandos, and Gabrielle Haller.
Sigh. Whoever said they were immortal? Once again you're leaping to conclusions that aren't supported by any fact.
In the case of Ian and Barbara, by immortal, I meant immortal youth, not immortal life, if you catch my drift.
Probably the Dalek time machine they took home somehow gave them immortality. Or something. It certainly didn't make them burnt cinders floating about in Spain.
What pissed me off most about that throwaway line was that it almost dashes my hopes that we'll get a story about the Doctor visiting Ian on his death bed. Also why haven't any of the other companions experienced the same such "side-effects" of travelling with the Doctor? Jo could have used a good dose of TARDIS travelling.